SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
columbia journalism review
'Potentially Ominous Trend' for Press Freedom as Trump Wages Legal War on News Outlets
"Governments and powerful figures threatening journalists and media outlets with costly legal battles and bankruptcy is a common tactic against press freedom in repressive countries," said one journalist.
Nov 15, 2024
"The press freedom fire is at our door step now," said one Washington Post journalist on Thursday night after news broke that two months before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office, he has already begun to wage legal warfare against on the news media.
The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR)reported that days before the election, a lawyer for Trump, Edward Andrew Paltzik, sent a letter to The New York Times and Penguin Random House demanding $10 billion in damages for publishing articles and a book that were critical of the president-elect, who was convicted of 34 felony counts earlier this year.
Trump's legal team took issue with a book by Times journalists Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner titled Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success. They also said they were demanding damages over "false and defamatory statements" in the October 20 article "For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment" by Peter Baker and the October 22 piece "As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator" by Michael Schmidt.
The former article covered numerous wrongdoings by the president-elect and accusations against him, pointing out that he "is the only president in American history impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, the only president ever indicted on criminal charges, and the only president to be convicted of a felony (34, in fact)," and that he has also boasted about sexually assaulting women and spearheaded numerous businesses that went bankrupt.
The latter article detailed comments by Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly, who told the Times that the definition of fascism accurately describes Trump.
The president-elect himself said while campaigning that he planned to govern as a dictator only on "Day One" of his term in office.
"Governments and powerful figures threatening journalists and media outlets with costly legal battles and bankruptcy is a common tactic against press freedom in repressive countries."
Paltzik told the newspaper that the articles demonstrate the Times' "intention of defaming and disparaging the world-renowned Trump brand that consumers have long associated with excellence, luxury, and success in entertainment, hospitality, and real estate, among many other industries, as well as falsely and maliciously defaming and disparaging him as a candidate for the highest office in the United States."
The CJR reported that the Times responded to Paltzik's letter, telling him the newspaper stood by its reporting on Trump.
As Barry Malone, deputy editor-in-chief of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said on social media on Friday, Trump's legal threats may be designed not to actually win billions of dollars in damages but "to tie the media up with time-consuming and often prohibitively expensive cases."
The Times and Penguin Random House threats were reported two weeks after Trump suedCBS News for another $10 billion, claiming an interview with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost the November 5 election, was unfairly edited to present her in a positive light and qualified as "election interference."
CBS said it would "vigorously defend" its journalistic practices and called the lawsuit "completely without merit"—a similar response to the one by The Washington Post, which was accused by Trump on the same day of making an illegal in-kind donation to Harris.
Anne Champion, an attorney who has represented several journalists and CNN in legal cases initiated by Trump, told the CJR that the legal threats will likely have "a mental chilling effect" on reporters and news outlets in the United States as Trump prepares to take office.
"It is both conscious and unconscious," said Champion. "Journalists at smaller outlets know very well that the costs for their organization to defend themselves could mean bankruptcy. Even journalists at larger outlets don't want to burden themselves or their employees with lawsuits. It puts another layer of influence into the journalistic process."
Trump has a longstanding disdain for the media, saying numerous times during his first term that journalists were the "enemy of the people." During one campaign rally just before the election he said he wouldn't "mind" if reporters at the event were shot, and he called the media the "enemy camp" during his victory speech last week.
During his first term he also threatened to "take a strong look at our country's libel laws"—which are actually controlled by states, not the federal government—and ensure that "when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts."
The American Civil Liberties Union pointed out at the time that the First Amendment and the lack of federal libel laws would stand in Trump's way, but on Thursday Lachlan Cartwright wrote at CJR that "the drumbeat of legal threats signals a potentially ominous trend for journalists during Trump's second term in office."
As Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah noted on the social media platform Bluesky, "governments and powerful figures threatening journalists and media outlets with costly legal battles and bankruptcy is a common tactic against press freedom in repressive countries."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'This Is Cowardice': Billionaire Owner Jeff Bezos Stops Washington Post From Endorsing Harris
"What an insult to those of us who have literally put our careers and lives on the line to call out threats to human rights and democracy."
Oct 25, 2024
The publisher of The Washington Postannounced Friday that the paper wouldn't make an endorsement in the U.S. presidential race, with its newsroom reporting that the decision was made by billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, who intervened to stop a drafted endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
Publisher William Lewis wrote that the paper would return to its "roots" of not endorsing presidential candidates, which the paper didn't do regularly until 1976. The decision came days after the Los Angeles Times owner, the billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, also reportedly blocked a planned endorsement of Harris.
The Washington Post Guild, a union, condemned Bezos' decision in a statement on social media, arguing that it was an abdication of responsibility and suggesting that "management interfered with our members in editorial."
Karen Attiah, a Post columnist, called the decision an "an absolute stab in the back," writing on social media.
"What an insult to those of us who have literally put our careers and lives on the line to call out threats to human rights and democracy," she wrote.
Martin "Marty" Baron, a former executive editor at the Post who was lauded for his leadership of the paper from 2012 to 2021, also denounced the decision not to endorse a presidential candidate.
"This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty. Donald Trump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner Jeff Bezos (and others)," he wrote on social media. "Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage."
On political endorsement https://t.co/e5OTZhylIE
This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty. @realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.
— Marty Baron (@PostBaron) October 25, 2024
The Post has endorsed the Democratic nominee for president in every race since 1976, aside from 1988, when it made no endorsement. The Los Angeles Times didn't issue endorsements for decades but has endorsed the Democrat in each of the past four presidential elections, starting in 2008.
Lewis said the Post would no longer make presidential endorsements and emphasized its commitment to independent, nonpartisan news. He cited editorial board decisions not to endorse in 1960 and 1972, which gave similar rationales.
Lewis was previously the publisher at The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch. Lewis' tenure at the Post, which began last year, has been plagued by controversy.
The reasons for Bezos' reported intervention to stop a planned Harris endorsement are not clear, but he has told the paper's leaders that he would like them to seek out more conservative readers and add more conservative opinion columnists, according toThe New York Times.
Some observers have suggested that Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and Soon-Shiong, a biotech mogul, are afraid to antagonize Trump for fear he could retaliate against their businesses when in office.
"The most serious allegation... is that Soon-Shiong and Bezos are trying to hedge their bets out of fear that their business interests could be harmed during a second Trump presidency," Columbia Journalism Review's Sewall Chan, who has worked at both the Post and the Los Angeles Times, wrote on Friday.
"Soon-Shiong, who made his fortune as a biopharmaceutical innovator, is working on new drugs that would presumably require FDA approval," Chan continued. "Amazon faces an antitrust lawsuit, brought last year by the Biden administration, that will take years to litigate or settle."
Robert Kagan, a neoconservative columnist and editor at large at the Post, resigned in protest on Friday, Semaforreported, while suggesting there may be further resignations.
"People are shocked, furious, surprised," an unnamed editorial board member told Semafor about the endorsement decision. "If you don't have the balls to own a newspaper, don't."
Other major newspapers have endorsed Harris, includingThe Philadelphia Inquirer on Friday—with the reminder that "the road to the White House may well run through Pennsylvania and every vote matters." Will Bunch, a columnist at the paper, wrote on social media that "unlike some other news organizations, we will not be silenced, not when everything is on the line for democracy."
The New York Times endorsed Harris on September 30, calling Trump "morally unfit" and "temperamentally unfit" for office.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Rising Alarm Over FCC Rule Change: Would Consumers Have to Pay $225 to File Telecom Complaints?
"At a time when consumers are highly dissatisfied with their communications companies, this abrupt change in policy troubles us."
Jul 11, 2018
Under a proposal that the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is slated to finalize Thursday, two House Democrats are "deeply concerned" that consumers would have to pay a $225 fee to get agency staff's help resolving complaints about communications companies' shady business practices.
In a letter (pdf) sent to Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Tuesday, Democratic Reps. Frank Pallone (N.J.) and Mike Doyle (Penn.), high-ranking members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, expressed concern that the proposal "would eliminate the agency's traditional rule of helping consumers in the informal complaint process" by directing staff "to simply pass consumers' informal complaints on to the company."
"Historically, FCC staff has reviewed responses to informal complaints and, where merited, urged companies to address any service problems," wrote the congressmen. "We have all heard countless stories of consumers complaining to the FCC about waiting months to have an erroneous charge removed from their bill or for a refund for a service they never ordered or about accessibility services that are not working. Oftentimes these issues are corrected for consumers as a result of the FCC's advocacy on their behalf."
Pallone and Doyle worry that if the proposal passes, as Gizmodoput it, "customers will either be at the mercy of their service providers--which are hated by consumers specifically because of their terrible customer service--or pony up $225" to file a formal complaint. Although, as The Vergenoted, "the fee for a formal complaint isn't new," the lawmakers believe the optional and "complicated formal legal process" soon could be the only way to get help from agency staff.
"Too often, consumers wronged by communications companies face unending corporate bureaucracy insetad of quick, meaningful resolutions," the letter concluded. "At a time when consumers are highly dissatisfied with their communications companies, this abrupt change in policy troubles us."
An FCC fact sheet claims (pdf) the proposal "streamlines and consolidates procedural rules governing formal complaints," and that "wording revisions" to the two sections that address informal complaints "do not alter the substance of the rule."
"The item would not change the commission's handling of informal complaints," an agency spokesperson told CNET and The Verge. "The Democrats' letter is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the draft order."
While FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry turned to Twitter to dismiss The Verge--which updated its story with the FCC comment--and Gizmodo's reports as "fake news," and shared the current consumer guide (pdf) for filing an informal complaint, Mathew Ingram of the Columbia Journalism review responded:
\u201cYes, but the proposed change would send complaints directly to service providers, and require anyone wanting a formal FCC review to pay a fee. So, not fake news in other words https://t.co/Xec4wxlAEq\u201d— Mathew Ingram (@Mathew Ingram) 1531321664
Doyle, for his part, reiterated his worries about the proposal on Wednesday morning:
\u201cThe @FCC should continue to stand on the side of consumers by holding big telecom companies accountable. Families and small businesses need reliable service - and the longer, expensive complaint process @AjitPaiFCC wants wouldn\u2019t do that. https://t.co/sAt7Txwp4c\u201d— Mike Doyle (@Mike Doyle) 1531320460
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular